


Happy Deathday

by DragonflyxParodies



Series: Capricorn [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Gotham City Sirens (Comics), Red Hood: Lost Days, Under the Red Hood
Genre: Anniversary of Jason's Death, Best present ever, Birthday, F/F, Harley's hyenas make an appearance, Joker got his ass murdered, Mentions of past violence/death, Multi, Recovery from bad injury, celebration, the Sirens are moms, the first one, well death technically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-23
Updated: 2018-08-23
Packaged: 2019-07-01 07:39:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15769584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragonflyxParodies/pseuds/DragonflyxParodies
Summary: His mothers are done mourning while he breathes beside them, and Harley takes the celebration literally.A bit more angsty than that makes it sound.





	Happy Deathday

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of my Capricorn AU! All you need to know for this fic is that Ivy, Selina, and Harley played a much more prominent role in raising/adopting Jason when he was on the streets/even after Bruce took him in. And during Jason's homecoming, Bruce's decision to cut Jason's throat had fatal consequences. Ivy managed to resuscitate Jay and rn he's chilling with his moms while he heals.

               Harley had been gone for a week. Ivy had been angrier than usual, the first couple days – but now, she just kept glancing at the door like Harley might burst in at any moment. Cat Mom had claimed she’d be home that night, but her voice had been painstakingly casual, slow in a low tone of appeasement Jason was more familiar with than he liked to admit. Ivy hadn’t stopped looking to the door.

Jason was sitting on the couch when she returned, staring in mute awe at the black cloth pooling in his hands. Like liquid night.

“You need something of your mamas with you, kitten. When you go back out. And for now – thought you might be up to helping out on a few heists, to get your groove back. Keeps the Hood out of things, if you don’t want that.”

Cat Mom’s voice was gentle, her smile genuine. Jason felt tears pricking at the corner of his eyes, and he couldn’t help the grin flickering across his face.

It was his size, too. Skin tight, like Cat Mom’s, and Ivy had dropped one of those cheap fuzzy headbands on top of it, cheaply sewn on cat ears covered in sparkles and little bells. The suit was reinforced, too. He recognized League leathers when he saw them.

Which – Cat Mom’s suit _had_ been looking a little niftier lately.

“You’ve been planning this.” He said, winced as his voice rasped through a still-healing throat.

The realization didn’t hit him until after he’d spoken, and he sucked in a strangled breath as his eyes darted to the firefighter-of-the-month calendar Harley had tacked up above the television. Policemen were too _ick_ , she’d said, and Jason had just _laughed_.

It was…

“We thought it best that we stopped grieving today. Selina suggested a celebration of sorts.”

Ivy let him sink into her, ignored the tears he blinked back and the ache in his throat. Breathing hurt, sometimes, and crying would definitely aggravate the injury.

He’d managed to stop asking _why_. Why they’d bother, when his own fucking father had decided he wasn’t worth it. But _god_ , wrapping his head around just how much they cared – _genuinely cared –_ was sometimes just…too much.

Ivy ran her hand through his hair, down his back. Cat Mom let out a soft, wet laugh and settled onto the couch behind him, leaning against him.

“After he got back. After we finally figured out what had happened to you. Those scars on his face? I cut him something nasty. He couldn’t hide it – hide from it.”

The tears broke free at that. He knew what scars she was talking about. Too ugly and deep for makeup to hide, there’d been some stupid ass cover story in the media when Bruce Wayne showed up with them. A hunting accident, Jason thought. He’d wondered where they’d come from. The more dangerous of Batman’s villains avoided the face – didn’t want to play their hand and reveal his identity, if they knew it. And the rest – well, Bruce took pains to avoid any blow to the face, even at risk to other parts of himself.

Jason had called him vain for it, once, when he was still red and green and yellow and could curl up into Bruce’s cape for comfort.

Ivy tucked her chin over the top his head, and Jason focused on getting himself under control. His wound was beginning to itch.

A soft chuffing, and two wet noses pressed themselves against his side, at the point where his shirt rode up. He let out a huff of laughter and turned a little, reached out a hand and rubbed at the hyena’s ears.

Bud and Lou were – well. He’d never had any bad associations with them, and they’d proven to be more loyal than any dog ever could’ve been. If a little more carnivorous. It had taken some _intense_ training to keep them from eating Selina’s cats, he’d been told, though they still liked to chase them around the apartment.

They broke apart at the sound of the front door swinging open, and maybe Jason was a little slower than his moms, maybe Lou had just hopped up onto his lap and started nosing his cheek, and maybe he was already smiling a little because he knew it was Harley but –

It took a minute, for him to realize she was covered in blood. Her hammer hung lazily from one hand, splattered with gore. She looked like she might start crying, and she was staring right at him. She sucked in a harsh, desperate breath before she started talking.

“I messed up, babydoll. The first time, I mean. I wasn’t…shoulda done this then. I saw how bad it hurt your mama, ‘n I just…I’m just so glad she forgave me for not…protecting you the first time around. Dunno how you can, but…anyway.”

Her whole body shuddered, like she might collapse, and she very gently reached over and propped her hammer against the wall. Smiled, watery and shaky, and held her hands out. Bud damn near slammed into the wall in his haste to get to the thing, and the sound of him lapping at the matter on it was deafening. Lou wasn’t far behind him.

“I gotcha a Death Day present. If you want to…if you can see it.”

Selina and Ivy were absolutely silent, behind him. Jason realized he had one hand pressed to the bandage over his throat, fingers so tight about it that it hurt. That was…new. After he’d come back – the first time – he’d found himself tracing his scars, or clawing at the autopsy marks on his chest when distracted. He’d been embarrassed about it, upset, and Talia had rolled her eyes – likened it to the way she found her hands resting on her breast or thigh, if she was doing nothing. _Comfort_ , she’d said. Honestly, he preferred the old tic to this one. It was…too new, too raw. Maybe one day he’d be okay with it, but…

He was distracting himself. _This_ was why he’d never gone after the Joker. Not until he could pull Bruce into it, anyway.

“Okay.” He whispered, and her expression crumpled.

There was no convincing Harley to clean up before they headed out, but Ivy managed to corral her into the backseat with a pack of wet wipes while Selina drove. They were all – even Harley – in civvies, and Jason was certain if they waited to suit up, he’d change his mind.

She directed them to an old apartment building, so deep in Crime Alley that Jason almost thought he was going home. Its roof had collapsed in on the top few floors, and even looking at it he could tell the whole fucking thing would probably come down on them if they went inside – but that was where Harley had guided Cat Mom, and she hopped out of the car the minute Selina had put it into park.

Cat Mom darted after Harley, but Ivy waited for him to crawl out of the vehicle and helped him as he made his way inside.

His wounds were still a little fresh, sure, but most of the fatigue – the soreness and the aching in every bone in his body – was more due to Ivy’s help than anything else. The Pit wasn’t too happy about something _else_ being inside him. If he was a little more stable, mentally, Jason might’ve been pissed about it – really, two ancient powers bitch-fighting in his body and _of fucking course_ they both had to be _green_ – but he was content to ignore it as best he could, if it meant there’d be one less _green_ thing haunting his bones.

There were bodies rotting in the building. Just a few, likely homeless people seeking shelter, those that had been unlucky enough to choose the wrong building. Been dead a while.

A couple of the corpses had been pulled apart, gore smeared across walls or dangling from the rusting fixtures in the ceiling.

The Joker of his childhood had been cold. Absolutely insane, and never _clinical_ , but…precise. Always three steps ahead and so casual about it you missed it. Always in control. This was…

Batman actually _choosing_ him, Jason realized, had sent the man into a tailspin. Broken him, maybe, in much the same way it had broken Jason.

What the hell was Jason supposed to do, now that he had nothing? What the hell was the Joker supposed to do, now that he had everything?

Well. That wasn’t true. Not for him, anyway, though admitting it to himself still made it seem… _fake._ All the more fragile.

“Come on, darling.” Ivy murmured, and Jason realized he’d stopped moving. Her hand at his back jarred him back into motion, and they squeezed through a sagging doorframe, through a filthy, dimly lit kitchen, and then down a rotting staircase to the basement.

He had to give it to Harley – she sure as hell knew how to dismember somebody. There wasn’t much left intact. A couple limbs, sort of. His head, though it had also been dented like a deflated basketball.

The floor was a mess, and there was a broom – one of those massive, long brushed ones he saw in shops – sticky with matter leaning against the far wall. She’d swept the Joker up into a pile, beneath one dangling, sickly lightbulb. The whole place reeked of gasoline.

Selina had an arm around Harley, and she was staring solemnly at the remains.

“We didn’t really know each other when you died, babydoll, but it broke everybody. ‘specially Ivy. I didn’t…do the right thing, then. Don’t think I did today. But it…it’s a start, I guess.”

Jason stared at her, swallowed back the sting of tears.

“I don’t blame you.” He whispered, finally. Harley shrugged.

“I do.”

At his side, Ivy sniffed, and Jason slid an arm around her.

“Happy Death Day, babydoll.” Harley said, and she pulled out of Selina’s grip. Turned and smiled at him, watery and genuine, and handed him a match.

“I know he’s…he’s like a cockroach. Figured you’d wanna make sure.”

It took him a few minutes, then, to keep himself from crying again. But he struck it, tossed it on top of the Joker’s body, and they watched for a minute before booking it out of the building.

Harley turned herself in afterward, for a hot second. Just long enough to walk into the GCPD and inform Commissioner Gordon that she’d killed the Joker, where his body was. Said she’d done it to protect Ivy’s baby. And if Batman had a problem with it, he’d better keep it to his fucking self – just because he was okay with his birds dying didn’t mean she was.

Jason watched the news report with Ivy, and tried hard not to laugh at the way the reporters gobbled that up. Harley didn’t let them actually arrest her – she blew a kiss at the cameras, and bounced off before anybody could grab her.

Selina – he knew Cat Mom had been more angry at Batman than the Joker. She’d pulled Jason aside more than once and told him to stay the fuck away from the man, warned Bruce time and time again about him, back when he was still in the cape. Ivy and Harley had been a mess, from what he’d gathered. Ivy had blamed Harley for a bit. Harley hadn’t been able to handle that, or what the Joker had done. Killing him would have alienated Harley entirely, and Jason knew for a _fact_ Ivy wouldn’t have been able to survive that. So they’d just…worked together. Pulled Harley out of the Joker’s control. And now he was dead.

The long game, sure, but it’d worked out in the end. And Jason would’ve fucking killed them, if his mothers had sacrificed their own happiness for revenge. It was different with Bruce. Had been, anyway.

“I don’t blame any of you.” He whispered, half-asleep, and Ivy kissed his forehead. He pretended not to notice the tears glittering on Ivy’s cheeks.

“Go to sleep, little one.”

Jason nodded – or, though he nodded, anyway – and was asleep before he’d even finished breathing out. The last thing he heard was Ivy sigh again.

“Happy Death Day, Jason.”

**Author's Note:**

> Bud & Lou are adorable and I loved them in GCS so HAVE SOME CUDDLY CANNIBALS
> 
> Harley and Jason in this AU weren't particularly close before he died. She was more his mom's GF than his mother, and Harley only really cared about him because Ivy did. She feels that she failed Ivy in not retaliating against the Joker/continuing to go back to him after Jason's death, but also feels responsible - she should've seen the warning signs, put the pieces together, warned somebody before it was too late. She didn't, and her best friend's son died as a result. After he came back, Harley, now thoroughly disenchanted with the Joker, felt she had to make amends for the past. And she'll sleep a little easier at night knowing he's gone, too.
> 
> I'm trying to push out the major beats in this AU lol, so here ya go! Also have some actual Mom! Time because yeah that's pretty lacking. RHATO 25 got me desperate for some Jason-with-decent-parents AUs so YEAH.


End file.
